Jack carries UCLA again despite uncertain role

PASADENA – In the days following Myles Jack’s breakout performance against Washington, Jim Mora cautioned about getting “too cute” with his newest weapon. There’s a saturation point, he said. He’s a linebacker, he said. Coaches are going to have an answer, he insisted.

But there he was, UCLA’s two-way sensation, taking his eighth handoff just two minutes into the second quarter. From one yard out, he ran into a wall of Washington defenders, his powerful legs chugging violently as he forced his way into the endzone for the third time in just 17 minutes.

Jack’s three touchdowns in one half were the most since Maurice Jones-Drew did the same in 2004. By halftime, he had 50 yards and two more carries than he last week against Arizona. With six minutes left in the third quarter, Jack became just the 13th player in UCLA history to score four touchdowns in a game. By game’s end, Jack had 13 carries for 59 yards and four touchdowns.

So much for saturation.

“It’s kind of a dance,” Mora said again after Saturday’s 41-21 victory. “You have to decide how much you can use him without hampering his ability to be effective. I think tonight was a good mix.”

After waiting until the second quarter to deploy Jack last week against Arizona, Mora didn’t waste any time trying to fool an expecting Huskies defense. Jack’s first carry came 2:38 into the game on 1st-and-goal, as he burst through the line of scrimmage like a locomotive, rumbling his way through Washington’s defense with ease for a nine-yard touchdown.

A drive later, Jack was in at the goal line as a decoy, as UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley fired a two-yard score to defensive end Cassius Marsh.

And there he was again on the next drive, where even his mistakes seemed to turn up daisies. Jack fumbled at midfield, but the ball rolled ahead for 25 yards and was recovered by UCLA. Two plays later, from one yard out, he scored again.

The second quarter was quiet by Jack’s standards: He only had one touchdown.

He’d add another in the third quarter, to go with four more carries. But by the fourth quarter, with his damage already done, Jack was taken out of the game after being hit in the head on defense. He’d return for one carry on UCLA’s final drive.

After the game, Mora reiterated that Jack won’t be switching to running back full-time.

“There’s so much more to being a running back than just carrying the ball,” Mora said. “Protection is so undervalued and no one ever talks about it. … He’s got to able to stand in there and know who to block when they blitz. And he’s not going to learn that now. It’s too late in the process.”

FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

As Friday’s primetime matchup with Washington drew closer to kickoff, UCLA’s “Bruin Eclipse” couldn’t do much to block out the empty seats and wide-open bleachers.

The logistics for a Friday night game were a nightmare, with UCLA fans forced to battle after-work, Friday traffic to get to the Rose Bowl for a 6 p.m. start. But midweek night games are here to stay, said Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott on Friday night, as ratings continuing to be “terrific” and conference teams continue to gain exposure and the Pac-12 continues to rake in profits.

“The mandate I had was to get more national exposure for the conference and raise our revenues,” Scott said in the Rose Bowl press box before Friday’s game. “What we found as a part of that process is that these weeknight games are very valuable.”

The conference’s new television agreement upped the required amount of midweek games from four last year to eight games this year. And while Scott agreed that those games put “a strain on campuses”, he pointed to the fact that conference teams will likely only play a midweek game two out of every three years for the duration of the new 12-year contract.

Last week’s Thursday night matchup between Oregon and Stanford yielded the eighth-highest viewership in the history of Thursday night games on ESPN. That kind of exposure, Scott said, should only help the Pac-12 as it tries to establish itself as a national power.

“There’s some real validation now out there that people are seeing the games in a way that they haven’t seen them before,” Scott said. “These wind up being great opportunities for programs like UCLA and Washington that have had great seasons to get a lot of national attention.”

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